


my arms were made for holding you

by abbadabbalouis



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: ALSO LOUIS HARRY N NICK HAVE BEEN BFFS 5EVER, LOUIS HAS CANCER AND NICK IS AN ONCOLOGIST, M/M, SO SUPER SAPPY AND EVEN ANGSTIER, Sick!Louis, Sickfic, THIS IS SAD I CRIED WRITING IT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 19:42:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2883470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbadabbalouis/pseuds/abbadabbalouis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've loved you for years. Since we were fourteen I think."</p>
<p>(Or the one where Louis has cancer and Nick is an oncologist. Nick is in love with Louis, but it might be too late)</p>
            </blockquote>





	my arms were made for holding you

Nick walked through the door of the club, loud music and the strong stench of alcohol washing over him. He weaved through the crowd, searching the room for Louis and Harry, his two best mates since grade school. It was Friday night, and ever since the three of them had grown busy leading separate lives, it had become their thing. Meeting on Friday nights and just talking about their week. For Nick, he knew it was something he could always fall back on. Whenever he had a particular bad week, he would just meet up with two people who take up a whole lot of space in Nick's heart, and things just wouldn't seem quite as terrible.

"Nick!" Someone shouted from nearby. Nick turned to find Harry wildly waving him over, and Nick grinned, laughing softly at Harry's ridiculousness as he walked towards him. When Nick got closer though, he frowned, as his very favorite obnoxious brat was nowhere to be seen.

"Wheres Lou?" Nick questioned, pulling Harry into a hug as greeting.

"Said he wasn't feeling well," Harry replied, the corners of his mouth tilting down as he said it. Nick frowned as well, his brow furrowing, and worry weaseling it's way into his chest.

"Lou's never sick," Nick murmured, and his voice was so saturated with worry, he inwardly cringed. Harry shrugged, but his mouth lilted into a smile.

"You sound so worried," Harry said, clearly trying not to laugh."It's _adorable_." Nick made a face at Harry, the whole situation making him feel weird and off-balance. "You know what else is adorable?" Harry continued, ignoring the miffed look Nick was sending his way. "How _bloody_ in love with him you are." Nick froze. "I absolutely am not," he protested, but the heavy feeling in his stomach said otherwise, and the expression on Harry's face told Nick that Harry was just as aware of the lie as Nick was.

\--

It happened the next week too. Nick walked into the pub they were supposed to be meeting at to find Harry nursing a pint in a booth alone, and when Harry told Nick that Louis was bailing for the same reason he had the previous week, the uneasiness that rose in Nick's throat was terribly difficult to push down. Nick had tried to text Louis throughout the previous week, but the only replies he'd gotten were brief and vague, and his concern for Louis was becoming overwhelming, to the point where he barely gave anything else much thought.

\--

Nick loved his job. He did. He was so grateful to have it and so proud of himself to have gotten his degree after years and years of school. But he was an oncologist, and watching people he'd gotten close to die so often, could just be so _hard_. It didn't seem to get easier like so many doctors had told him, and each patient death felt has though another tiny bit of Nick's heart was being scooped out.

Nick walked into the waiting room to talk to the secretary about one of his patient's files, and his heart gave a start when none other than Louis was sitting in the room. He obviously hadn't seen Nick yet; he was staring at his shoes, bouncing his leg and twisting his fingers, fidgeting like he always did.

"Lou?" Nick said, his voice cutting through the suffocating silence in the waiting room. "What're you doing here?"

Louis's head jerked up, and he watched Nick for a moment, like a deer in the headlights, replying with a half-hearted shrug.

 

"Seriously Lou," Nick said, striding towards where Louis was sitting, panic creeping into his voice. "What're you doing here?" he repeated when he got close, saying it as a whisper more than anything else.

"My primary care doctor told me to come," came Louis's quiet reply. "But I've only been a bit poorly, so I'm sure it's nothing." Nick frowned, a deep valley forming between his brows.

"Who are you here to see?" He asked, his voice so quiet and worried it sounded foreign coming out of Nick's mouth."I'm switching you to me," he said, before Louis could reply."I'm not letting anyone else check you for this sort of thing when I can."

Louis nodded, resignedly, knowing that he really didn't have a choice in the matter.

\--

The ball of panic in Nick's stomach grew monstrous as Louis listed his symptoms, but Nick valiantly tried to keep it tame, tried to keep himself from losing control as he wrote down what Louis was telling him. Nick led Louis to another room, where he'd get blood work done and then be taken to get a few scans done. Nick stopped outside of the door, and Louis did as well, turning to face Nick, leaning on the doorframe.

"I'll call you when results come back," he murmured. "Or I'll see you Friday, whichever comes first." Louis nodded, shooting Nick a nervous smile as he walked into the room for his tests while Nick watched him go, dread rushing through his veins.

\--

The test results came back first. It was a Wednesday night, and Nick ran to the bathroom to throw up after he saw the scan. It was Stage III Lung Cancer. His best friend had very potentially fatal lung cancer. His best friend who he'd been in love with since they'd were fucking fourteen, but was to afraid to admit it to himself. Until now of course. Until now, when there was a high chance of Louis dying. Nick called Louis with shaking hands.

"Lou," he breathed out when Louis picked up. "You need to come to my office." Nick's voice was cracking and wavering, his despair possessing his tone.

"What? Why?" Louis said, his voice crackling over the line, and so obviously panicked."Why?" He asked again and again and again, as though the repetition would make what Nick so obviously needed to talk to him about less real.

"Just come," Nick whispered, his voice dripping with weariness and sorrow.

\--

Louis cried when Nick told him. Nick cried too, because as much he effort he had put into grappling the tears pricking at the back of his eyes, the tears had won. They spilled over, and Nick found himself hugging Louis tightly. Clinging tightly to one another, and their tears running together, Nick's heart swelled with sadness, pressing uncomfortably in his chest, constricting his breath. Nick's love for Louis making it harder to breathe than it had ever been before, even harder than the times he'd had asthma attacks so bad he was hospitalized, so much harder.

\--

Louis decided to do chemo. He didn't necessarily have much of a decision, since the cancer had spread from a large tumor that had cultivated itself on the middle lobe of Louis's left lung to the point where it was inoperable. So Nick was glad Louis chose chemo, the only other option being no treatment at all and guaranteed death. Nick was really much too selfish to allow Louis to pick that.

\--

They were at Louis's flat when Louis told Harry, and Harry proceeded to uncontrollably sob for hours. Clutching onto Louis, Harry cried and cried and cried, until he finally wore himself out, falling asleep with a splotchy face and tear tracks dried on his cheeks.

Once Harry finally fell asleep, Louis carefully untangled himself from the gangly boy's arms and fell into the large armchair where Nick was sitting. He curled into the older man's side, and buried his face into Nick's chest. The front of Nick's shirt was soon soaked with tears, and Louis's shoulders were shaking. Quiet tears spilled out of Nick's eyes, and he clutched Louis tighter. The amount of sadness in the air of the room was suffocating.

\--

Louis began his chemo, and even as his soft hair fell out, and his golden skin paled to a sickly grey, and his eyes were no longer twinkling, Nick still thought he was the most beautiful boy in the world. Nick knew it couldn't be any less professional, but he didn't really care. It didn't matter how unprofessional he was being when the center of his universe was flaking away before his eyes.

\--

A month and a half after Louis started chemo, the scans were redone to see what effects the treatment were having. Nick threw up in his office trash can as soon as he saw the results.

\--

"It's terminal," he choked out. Louis was frozen in front of him."The chemo didn't work at all." Nick began crying in earnest, full body-racking sobs, and he dropped his head onto his hands, feeling like his chest was crumpling and collapsing, like the world was falling apart around him.

He felt weakened arms wrap around his shoulders, a warm torso press up against his side. Louis was shaking with sobs, too, and they stayed wrapped together and crying in Nick's small office chair for hours.

\--

When Harry found out, he didn't really stop crying until months after the end. Either crying or on the verge of tears, walking around with constantly bloodshot eyes, seeking out the comfort of even strangers.

\--

Louis stopped with chemo after it was deemed pointless. The wasting away slowed, but Nick could still see it. Louis's skin steadily growing more translucent, blue veins scarily visible in his wrists. His ribs easier to count by the day, and hipbones pressing against tissue paper skin. But the worst was Louis's breathing, which steadily got shakier and weaker until Nick was forced to hook him up to an oxygen tank, making Louis look closer to death than ever.

\--

The months passed, and everything was beginning to feel like a goodbye. Their last Friday night out, Louis too sick to continue going out, Louis's last Christmas, his last birthday. His last New Year, his last visit home. His last time in his own home.

Nick sat at Louis's bedside, clutching the sleeping boy's hand to his chest. As unreligious as Nick was, he'd been praying for the last hour. Praying for more time, because time was something Louis was running short of. "Nick," a quiet voice rasped. Nick looked up. Louis was watching him with exhausted, pain ridden eyes.

"What're you thinking about?" Louis asked, and Nick almost laughed. But before he could, something stopped him. A hand of knowing seized his heart, and Nick huffed out a breath.

"Lou," he murmured, rubbing his thumb over the back of Louis's hand and gazing steadily into Louis's eyes. "I've been in love with you for years. Since we were fourteen, I think. And it might be too late now, but I think more than anything, I want you to know." Louis didn't reply right away, didn't even react right away.

Soon though, a weak smile split across his face, and Louis tugged at Nick's hand, an attempt to pull him closer. "And I'm in love with you too, you bloody idiot." Louis said, a soft laugh dancing in the space between the two of their lifts. Nick swooped down, drawing Louis's lips into his. Nick couldn't rememberhaving a kiss that had ever been this gentle, he likely hadn't had a kiss this gentle, and it was beautiful. Beautiful and sweet and without a doubt the best moment of Nick's life.

\--

The worst moment of Nick's life occurs only a few days later. He was jolted out of his slumber by Louis's bed by nurses coming into the room. They were smiling sadly at him. They were his friends after all, they knew him.

"Is he?" Nick started, too choked up to continue. One of them nodded, pulling Nick into a hug, letting Nick sob into her shoulder until Harry came, while they took Nick's beautiful boy away from him.

\--

Nick never really recovered from Louis's death. He eventually met someone, but it wasn't Louis. He eventually loved them, but nowhere near as much had he loved Louis. He visited Louis's grave often over the years, always bringing along gifts and stories that he knows Louis would've liked. He grows old, and he is happy, he has wonderful friends and a lovely husband, but his beautiful boy is always in the back of his head, smiling his brilliant smile where his eyes crinkle at the edges, and warmth and light and happiness radiate off, lighting up the immediate surroundings, and filling anyone nearby, anyone witnessing this wonderful smile, with happiness.

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS THE LONGEST THING I'VE EVER WRITTEN AND FIRST THING I'VE POSTED ON AO3! I HOPE EVERYONE ENJOYED AND SEND FEEDBACK!!


End file.
